[Art Deco]

August 13: Purchased the contract of SS Cole Tucker from AAA Durham, designated IF Nick Loftin for assignment and placed him on waivers.

Tucker got 4 games in at Durham (2 for 18), so he got to work a little rust off. Loftin should clear waivers again.

Game 1: The Orioles came to town for Friday the 13th, and the game played out like a horror movie for the Rays on a couple of occasions. The first instance came right away when Jack Leiter, his rotation spot dangling by a thread, gave up hits to the first four Orioles hitters of the game with three of them scoring to put the Rays in an early 3-0 hole. He did settle in nicely after that, and aside from a run allowed in the 6th when he was running out of gas, ended 5.2 7 4 4 0 9 with his run of strikeouts impressive. And not only that, the offense got to Oriole ace Bryar Johnson, chasing him in the fifth. But just when it looked like the monster/demon/slasher was dead, it resurfaced in the 8th inning when the bullpen contrived to blow a 10-4 lead, capped by Blake Money surrendering a grand slam to Gunnar Henderson to tie the game. Money was terrible, putting two on ahead of Henderson's shot and then two more after before Jose Alvarado had to rescue him, sending us to yet another extra-inning game. But like in most horror films, the nemesis is defeated in the end and the "final girl" in this movie was Andrew Knizner, whose 12th inning homer off Ruben Galindo gave the Rays an eventual 11-10 win. After Leiter put them in arrears, they tied it up by the 3rd and went ahead with 7 runs in the 5th and 6th. Knizner had a big 2-run double early in the game to get them on the board, and Yordan Alvarez's 25th HR tied it up. Keston Hiura chased Johnson with a 2-run shot (#8) in the 5th, and Judson Fabian hit #12 in that inning. Brandon Marsh had a 4-hit day and scored twice with a steal as well. Alvarado ended up going 2 1/3 in relief before Evan Godwin pitched 1 2/3 brilliant innings, retiring all 5 he faced including 4 via strikeout to get his 3rd win. The other pitcher who combined with Money to give up 6 in the 8th was Steven Casey, and he at least had the excuse of having to leave with biceps tendinitis, a 7-week injury which effectively ends his season since I doubt he makes the postseason roster. Strangely the Yankees were idle on a Friday so the lead grows to 7 and the magic # drops to 34. By the way, I just want to take a moment to talk about Knizner, who's replaced an injured .340-hitting catcher by going 317/368/520 himself with 25 RBI in 36 games. This would make the 3rd year in 4 he's hit over .300 and I might try and give him a 1-year extension and let Carlos Perez play every day at Durham for another season.

August 14: Placed P Steven Casey on the 15-day IL with biceps tendinitis, recalled P Cole Patten from AAA Durham.

Patten's done nothing but pitched well when he's been up, so here's hoping that continues.

Game 2: The Rays lost a tough one tonight to Baltimore 3-2, wasting another dominant outing from Christian Little. The game was 1-1 going into the 7th, and Little had 13 strikeouts with his only blemish a CJ Chatham solo homer. Little got the first two outs of the 7th, one via strikeout, but gave up an infield single, hit a batter and then gave up another infield single to load the bases. With his pitch count approaching 110, surely Daniel Espino could come in and take care of .150-hitting Oriole backup catcher Will Banfield? Nope, Banfield hit a 2-run single and Baltimore had all the runs they'd need. Espino pitched a scoreless 8th after getting the final out of the 7th, and Cole Patten continued to look good with a 1-2-3 9th, but the damage was done. The bats couldn't get much going against Kevin Abel, but it didn't look that way at the start as Keston Hiura led off the game with a triple (extended his hit streak to 15 games) and immediately scored on a Wander single. But it turned out Abel would allow only 3 more hits after that, although one of them was Nate Clark singling in Hunter Bishop who had doubled in the 7th. Judson Fabian walked in the 9th to give them a semblance of hope, but nobody else could reach and the game was over. The Yankees got back in the win column with a 4-run ninth to beat the White Sox so the lead is down to 6.

Game 3: The Rays rolled to a comfortable 7-1 win today behind the solid pitching of Mack Anglin and some awake bats. Anglin had the Orioles pounding his slider into ground, recording 10 ground outs in a 6.2 7 1 1 1 5 performance. Aside from the 5th when Baltimore scored its run, Anglin was only really in trouble in the 2nd when Austin Meadows led off with a double and Druw Jones beat out an infield single to put men on 1st and 3rd with no out. But he struck out the next two batters and got a ground out and rolled from there. Hunter Bishop got the offense going with HR #14 to lead off the bottom of the 2nd, and they scored two more in the inning on Brandon Marsh's double. A Marsh RBI single and Keston Hiura's RBI double (hit streak now at 16) added runs in the 6th after Judson Fabian's GIDP scored one in the 5th. Nate Clark's 7th inning sac fly rounded out the scoring. Jack Filby struck out 3 of the 4 batters he faced and retired, and Cole Patten had another scoreless inning to finish it off. Filby has been great lately as today's outing was the 13th consecutive appearance he's made without allowing a run. The Yankees won to stay 6 back but the magic # is now 33.

Team record: 79-45. Next up: 3 big games with those Yankees in New York. Get swept and it's a real dogfight, win one and things are tight but relatively comfortable, win two and be in command, or sweep and the division race is effectively over. We'll see what happens tomorrow.